Monday, June 27, 2011

We are in the home stretch. Baby Bellamie is due in less than 4 weeks and I couldnt be more excited, anxious, overwhelmed, happy and maybe even a little scared. Little Bella is growing 1/2 an inch each week and will continue to grow a 1/4 inche per week for the first few months of life. Of course the fist thing everyone wants to know, is how big was the baby when she was born. All this talk made me realize it was time to make a growth chart. While I have made charts for friends and family in the past, I was so exicted that the time had finally come to make one for our family. We cant wait to meet you Miss Bellamie and see how big you are!!

Saturday, June 11, 2011

While this blog was intended for all things crafty, lately my life has been taken over by all things baby! Our little girl isn't even here yet and already she is consuming all my "free" time. From baby showers to maternity shoots, and the nursery to Lamaze class, life has been a bit crazy. Because a picture is worth a thousand word, I thought it would be best to just show you what we have been up to rather than tell you, don't worry I dont have any pictures from Lamaze class!!
But because there are no pictures, lets review what we learned before we get to the good stuff... First off all the "he he whoooo, he he whoooo," was so last year! Now it is all about deep calming breaths. During which time, husband is supposed to say soothing words to keep you calm and breathing. My husband choose, "breath woman." This lead to the discussion after class of things he will not be saying while I am in labor. Next up was massage techniques, which lasted throughout the day and was quite wonderful. We even had to give our husband a massage, which Rob noted as his favorite part of the class on our sheet at the end of the day. Perfect, the only thing he took away from the class, was that he likes massages, tell me something I didn't already know. Now onto the pain medications. Apparently women in labor are so incredibly scary pain meds are handed out like candy. And while I was all for the epidural at first, loosing all feeling in my legs, unable to roll over, a needle the size of grandmothers knitting needles and the possibility of my labor lasting hours longer, have started to change my opinion on the matter. And lastly, I had assumed that modesty kind of went of window when you are in labor, but even I was taken aback when we watched a video of a naked woman down on all fours give birth to a child! This also lead to the discussion that no matter how much pain I am in, please do not let me deliver our child like this!!
Are you still with me? Or have you skipped down to pictures of happier times? I don't blame you!! All that said, here is what we have been up to lately.
Pictures of the shower and maternity shoot provided by my dear friend Miss Sarah Raelle....

Sunday, May 15, 2011

I knew I wanted a mobile for miss Bellamie's room, but found the overpriced, yet cheap looking ones you can buy from the store rather tacky. So yet again I turned to the internet. When I first started looking I found some cute ones on Etsy but at $50 a pop, decided to keep looking. It wasnt long before I forgot entirely about the mobile, I blame it on the preggo brain, as I do with everything else, when my gal Martha stepped in yet again. While I absolutely LOVE the way my mobile turned out, and it matches the room perfectly, I do NOT recommended making one!! It took forever!!!! But if you dont like your fingerprints much anyway (hot glue is best friend and worse enemy) and you want to blow an entire Sunday afternoon, here is how I made it...

Miss Martha told me to use armature wire to make branches... I still dont know what armature wire is but I found some wire in the flower section at Jo-Anns and covered it with brown floral tape.

I made three different branches and hooked them all together.

Next (and you will have to go to her website to download the template) cut out your birds from heavy scrapbook paper.

Now you can waste a good hour of you Sunday using your cricut cutter to cut out a billion little flowers, or buy a flower punch at your local craft store. The only bonus to using the cricut, you can cut flowers in various sizes.
Then, glue your flowers to your branches.

Finally, (and once again not in Martha style cuz one Martha isnt married and two I am sure she used some fancy-mancy wire) ask your husband to dig out some of his fishing line he doesnt use and string your birds from your branches...

Stand back and enjoy your work... dont you love how well it matches the tree!

And while I LOVE how this turned out, I bet you are thinking the tacky, plastic mobiles from the store aren't sounding half bad!!

Sunday, May 8, 2011

This is the first installment of my short and sweets, short blog entries on all my homemade sweets.

Ask anyone who knows me, I have always had a sweet tooth. So I jump at any opportunity to make some sort of baked good. This past week was bittersweet as our Office Administrator but in her notice. Of course, instantly I thought, what will I bake on her last day. The first thing that came to mind, cupcakes!! Perfect for the office, easy to eat and no utensils required!!

Butterfly cupcakes are so easy and perfect for adults to kiddos!

All you need is your favorite cake batter. (prepare as directed on box)

Vanilla frosting...

Two pretzels for wings...

Mix some of your vanilla frosting with food coloring, put into a sandwich baggie, cut the end and make a line down the center. Add an m&m for a head and wallah, butterfly cupcakes!

I recommend making these the same day you plan to serve them, as the pretzels tend to soak up the moisture from the frosting.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

All girls love a baby shower, and this girl is no exception... And with my own baby shower in the near future, I was even more excited to attend one this past weekend. However, as the baby shower drew closer, I realized I never ordered a gift from the registry. As panic set in, I decided making a gift was much more personal anyway. A few years ago, gifting for another shower, a friend and I came across a website called Baby bunch. They sell bouquets of fake flowers and onesies rolled to look like flowers. Too cute and too spendy at $60 a piece, I thought, I could totally make that!!
Instead of plain white onsies like the ones online, I picked out an adorable gift set of little boys clothing.

I bought some fake flowers and had Rob find me some thin wire.

In order to roll the clothing to look like flowers, I found it easiest to fold each piece into triangles.

Then roll the triangles into "flowers"

I added leaves around my "flowers" using the wire.

Then wire the fake flowers to the clothing flowers.

And tada!!

Super easy and inexpensive!! Lastly, I added some ribbon to cover the stems.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Oh how I love every Holiday. I get it from my mom. Growing up she not only decorated the house for each one, she hosted parties for me and my girl friends. Thus began my obsession. My poor husband couldn't be more excited that we are having a baby, so he won't have to hunt for his Easter basket anymore! And even better for him, this year I wanted to forgo making him dye the traditional Easter eggs with me, for a more crafty option that I planned to tackle on my own. To the internet I went in search of new ideas on an old tradition. It wasn't long before my girl, Martha Stewart, pointed me in the "right" direction. Off to good start, right? Well that's about where the "good" ended... The following is a lesson in how NOT to decorate Easter Eggs.

Miss Martha had taken blown eggs, cut out shapes from beautiful napkins and used mod podge to glue them to the eggs... Simple, easy, and beautiful. Thus, I headed to town for decorative napkins and mod podge. A few hours and several stores later, not only had I not found either of the two, I still had managed to spend a bunch of money on stuff I didn't need, and headed home with Elmer's glue and two bags of Easter candy. Disappointed, but not defeated, I was determined to find a way to make this work, my first error of many...

First, I had my dear sweet hubby, whom I had promised wouldn't have to do anything this year, help me blow out a few eggs.

Next I got my not-exactly-Martha-approved supplies...

I cut my thick, not so bendy scrapbook paper....

Now for some reason I truly thought my paper would magically conform to the shape on my egg... how wrong I was..

Apparently it turned out so bad I didnt even take a picture of the "finished" product. More discouraged but not ready to throw up the white surrender flags, I found the stencil I used to paint baby Bellamie's nursery.

Now, if scrapbook paper has a hard time taking to the shape on egg, hard plastic downright refuses. Once again, this turned into such a mess, I decided there was no picture necessary. However I too am stubborn like the plastic and remembered I had some pretty gift wrap. Now, let me tell you, I could give those old ladies that sit outside the department stores offering gift wrapping, a run for their money. My husband's goal each is year is to find the most awkward, unwrappable item in the store, and I gladly take on the challenge. But oh internet, even my super awesome, nearly professional gift wrapping skills were no match for that damn egg!

This picture may not look so bad, but thats only because my fingers were glued to it and once I removed them, half the paper came with it!! That was it, I threw in the towel, and cursed like a sailor, cleaning up the mess, (something I am actually good at, mess making!) Until my husband reminded me that in this weeks baby update, she can now hear when we speak and I should probably shouldn't talk like a truck driver. As my lip started to quiver, because what kind of mother curses over Easter eggs, Rob reminded me that is just the hormones, and I should probably take a break. A cup of hot cocoa and a bag of sweettarts later, I had another ah-ha moment. My grandmother had sent me some fancy napkins years ago, that I had been waiting for the perfect occasion to come along to use.

Too tired to take pictures at this point... I cut out some shapes, used my trusty elmers glue and ta-da!!

Oh Martha, if I had only listened to you from the beginning, this could have been a lesson in how to decorate beautiful Easter Eggs. Instead it was a total fisaco and my only advice now is to buy the damn, I mean dang, $.99 egg dying kit found at ANY grocery store..

Sunday, April 3, 2011

I am a “scrapper.” And while it may be true, in an argument, I fight “dirty”, once while in the midst of an argument with my dear hubby, I jumped up and stood on the bed. When my husband asked what exactly I was doing, I reminded him that when in the woods and confronted by a bear, one should try to appear larger and louder, in order to intimidate the animal. I was simply applying the same theory to the current situation. Yes, my husband and I have some pretty serious arguments, I won’t even go into the time we argued whose dad could beat up the other person’s dad, but I will tell you it ended in a phone call to our respective parents to get their opinion, which was never given. However, this is not the kind of scrapper I am speaking of, no no, I am talking about my love for scrapbooking. And I have two goals before baby Bella comes along, number 1, gets Robs hunting album up to date (Done!!) and number 2, finish our wedding album, (still a work in progress, and yes we got married almost 3 years ago.) I am not the class taking, layout learning, only using creative memories kind of scrapbooker. For me, all these things ruin the creative side of scrapbooking, which is what I LOVE about it in the first place. That said, I wanted to show a few of my favorite pages from my scrapbooks.

Here is the wedding album...

And a few from Rob's album... Warning, there a few pictures of dead animals...

Heres to hoping I can get the rest of the wedding album finished in the next 3 and a half months!!